joea1 said:
I have an enquiry.
Paddington - Reading is £6.00 return, Waterloo-Reading is £5.85 return. Since tickets say 'London Terminals', would I be able to buy the £6.00 ticket and use it on the Waterloo-Reading route? It does say any route is permitted. The £5.85 ticket strictly says via Staines only.
Yes, Staines is a permitted route. Apart from the fact it's a valid mapped route, the fact that "Route Staines" is cheaper than "Route Any Permitted" ensures it's valid.
joea1 said:
Also, if I want to make a plan to catch the 11:08 Voyager back from Reading to East Croydon and get a train back to Victoria, a "London Terminal', would Virgin accept the ticket?
I'll have to get the
Routeing Guide out to check. What's my commission?
IF there were valid mapped routes to do this (which there aren't, as we'll see later), then you'd have to do this without doubling back. The normal route would involve doubling back between Clapham Jn and East Croydon - so not valid.
Reading is a member of the Reading Group routeing point, and London terminals are members of the London Group.
Mapped routes between London Group and Reading Group are
WR, WV, WW, WX
You can travel to Victoria, via Kensington Olympia and Clapham Junction, on map
WR. But this does
not permit going via East Croydon.
The question of whether you can travel between Kenny O and East Croydon on a Travelcard is debateable. Officially, no you can't. Virgin do not appear on the
London Connections travelcard map. Are Voyagers announced at Kensington as going to East Croydon? If so, and if there are no warnings about travelcards not being valid, then you could argue that the average passenger would have no way of knowing it's not valid (After all, does joe public really know or care if they get a Virgin train instead of a Southern service?), and the chances are the guard will let you off, but if they don't, you have to pay £1.75 (See below).
joea1 said:
Basically I want to buy the Paddington-Reading ticket for £6.00. Since the ticket will say 'London Terminals' and 'Any route permitted', can I use that same ticket to travel from Waterloo instead? And seeing as any route is permitted, can I catch a Virgin service to East Croydon and use my Travelcard to get back into London without Virgin fineing me?
Virgin don't do "fines" (penalty fares) but if your ticket is declared not valid they can charge you the SOS (Standard Open Single) or SDS (Standard Day Single) for the part that is not valid. (In this case the applicable fare is a SDS from Kensington Olympia to East Croydon route "CLAPHM J NOT LDN" at £ 1.75 )
A few fares for you
Code:
=========================================
READING to EAST CROYDON
-----------------------------------------
Ticket type Route/company Price
CHEAP DAY RETURN NOT LONDON 6.55 GBP
CHEAP DAY RETURN ANY PERMITTED 7.35 GBP
=========================================
=========================================
READING to LONDON TERMINALS
-----------------------------------------
Ticket type Route/company Price
CHEAP DAY RETURN STAINES 5.85 GBP
CHEAP DAY RETURN ANY PERMITTED 6.00 GBP
=========================================
Hope this helps.
Next time have a go at the RG yourself at
http://www.atoc.org/rsp/Routeing Guide/splash.shtml and you can get fares from
http://nationalrail.co.uk/ If you get stuck please don't hesitate to post under 'General NR' and drop me a PM to say it's there and I'll do my best to assist.
joea1 said:
1288gaje said:
hmm, I had West Brompton to Reading via Clapham Junction and I went on Virgin to Reading, although there was no conductor in the train
You're lucky, you'd have been fine, as the ticket should've stated 'through Staines'
There is no such thing as a West Brompton to Reading 'via Staines' or 'via Clapham Junction', although you could go those ways.
The only fares for this journey are 'via London' and 'not London' (there is no 'Any Permitted' - but you can go one way and back the other by buying the cheaper 'not London' fare then paying half the difference as an excess fare, but this can take ages and you have to find a competent ticket seller. Of course, the more expensive 'route London' ticket is also valid on the cheaper 'not London' route anyway).
